Making Plum Jam

 Last week I bought two boxes of fresh plums from the farmers market.  The original intent was to use them all for plum wine, but after halving and pitting thirty pounds of them, my hands were too sore and tired to use them all.  The unused plums remained in their box for another week before I could get to them again.  At this point they had reached their peak of ripeness and I picked through them to get rid of any that were past their prime.  I still didn't have the time to properly can them yet though, so I made quick work of pitting and halving what was left and they went into the freezer until I could find enough time to make jam.

Today was their lucky day.  I pulled the bag of frozen plums out of the freezer and set them in a hot water bath to thaw for a while.  From here they went into my largest stainless steel sauce pan where they simmered while I set up the canner.  They were nice and juicy plums and they smelled so sweet as they cooked on the stove.  I measured them out to be about nine cups of plums which is 1 1 1/2 times called for in the recipe, so I adjusted the amount of pectin and sugar that I added to make sure that my final product would gel properly.

I stirred them constantly as they heated on the stove to make sure that I dissolved all of the sugar.  This recipe calls for a ton - twelve cups for the nine cups of plums that I had.  I think I am making plum candy instead of jam!  After the mixture came to a hard boil I kept stirring it quickly for another couple of minutes, then turned off the heat.  I skimmed off as much foam as I could and then filled the jars from the canner one by one.  The result was fourteen half pints of this beautiful plum jam that I will be enjoying all winter long.